Tuesday 4 October 2005

Nandor goes bush

Nandor's gone as an MP and gone bush to clear his head. Reactions to his departure from the parliamentary complex have ranged from the eulogistic -- "I will never forget the people I met who had life changing stories to say about you" -- to the humorous -- Rasta la vista baby -- to the occasional celebratory "Fuck him; let's dance."

He did mature from his early days as an MP when he helped vandalise a researcher's crops down at Lincoln, and he might perhaps have been the only Greens' MP that had at least a visceral commitment to personal freedom. (This was a party that ran on the policy of raising the drinking age. Go figure.) So that's the end of that then. In that respect at least, there are worse MPs that well-deserved the chop before him. Nick Smith for instance. Or Keith Locke.

Tanczos said his "biggest disappointment is that we did not complete cannabis law reform. There are 20,000 cannabis convictions a year and it's an absolute waste of police and court time and young people's lives, for what is essentially just a herb."

Tanczos said there was a certain irony that if a portion of the 5748 people who voted for the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party had voted Green, he an advocate for reform would have been back in parliament.
But as Zippy Gonzales says in response to a similar bleat from the FrogBlog, "Blaming ALCP won't get the Greens anywhere. If they wanted the stoner vote, the Greens should have done something like, y'know, included it in their campaign." Excellent point. Anyone for an instant fine?

[UPDATE: Russell Brown's interview with Nandor Tanczos on the past six years and where-to-now on the 95bFM Wire show is archived here.]
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

For accuracies sake I should point out that Nandor helped pull up the GE potatoes in early 1999, 11 months before he became an MP.

Also, who says the student had their thesis "ruined" - who's to say that this mysterious and mythical MSc student couldn't salvage something from the wreckage? As a masters supervisor myself, I am sure that if the student in question had written up what happened in an academic way, then even if there were no proper results, that they would have still passed their degree.

Peter Cresswell said...

I hoped someone would confirm his participation for me. Thank you.

AFAIK, the student's two years worth of research was poured down a hole.

andrew said...

An interesting bloke,and once he makes up his mind whether he is a political Arthur or a Martha, he might make a good future politician.How can someone support personal freedom, and the greens at the same time?

Anonymous said...

Nandor? Nandor who?

E.